We Americans love progress. We love to see how technology is surpassing all past inventions to create a new, better and brighter future. Even more than seeing it, we love hands-on exploration. Invite us to put our best foot forward and step right in, and here we come.
No wonder we’re drawn like magnets by the U.S. Boat Shows — which for two weeks every October transform Annapolis into a world’s fair of marine technology.
We not only see...

Sailboats, it’s arguable, were the first technological wonder to shrink the wide world to a global village. They’re still doing it. As the U.S. Sailboat Show ended its 45th encampment in Annapolis, two great openwater races demonstrate the lasting power of wind and maritime ingenuity.
From October 16 to 19, 34 classic ships dash down the Chesapeake from Annapolis to Portsmouth, Virginia, in the 25th Annual Great Schooner Race. As the pace-setters of trade for...

Get off your feet — or seat — at the new Allan and Edie Segree Rest Area behind the Broadneck Library on the Broadneck Trail. The 1.2-mile Broadneck Trail, running parallel to busy College Parkway, is a favorite path for bicyclists, joggers and walkers. Opened in 2013, it will connect with the B&A Trail eventually.
As well as a welcoming bench, the Segree Rest Area includes a picnic table, bike rack plus a water fountain for people and a hose for a pet dish,...

Call him Drosophila melanogaster in the lab, where a century ago the fast-breeding creature helped scientists understand chromosomes and set out mapping genes.
At home he’s the common fruit fly, aka the vinegar fly.
Each autumn the tiny winged pests arrive in your kitchen. There they swarm, hovering intrusively over edibles you’d rather they had no part of. From the bowl of fruit to the compost container even to the fridge, they are with us....

I was re-exploring some old territory higher up in one of our broader tributaries when the strike finally came. Working a quiet shoreline in the early morning, I cast out a half-ounce Saltwater Chug Bug near the broad entrance to a tidal pond.
With just a soft twitch, the lure spit a bit of water, then sank from sight. I wasn’t sure it had been taken by a fish until my rod tip dipped and the line moved up current. Coming tight, I cinched the fish up, and the surface...

If you’ve been out before dawn you’ve likely seen Jupiter blazing in the east. Early Friday morning, the gaseous giant shines left of the waning crescent moon. The following morning you’ll find it above the moon and forming a loose triangle with the star Regulus, the heart of Leo the lion.
The only other naked-eye planets visible are Mars and Saturn, low in the western sky in the darkening twilight. Saturn is fast on the heels of the setting sun, while Mars...

Fall is the time to repot houseplants. During the short daylight hours of late fall, winter and early spring, most houseplants don’t produce much top growth. This rule is especially true of plants that live outdoors during the summer.
For a plant to grow in a container, it needs room for new roots. Plants are root-bound when their roots fill the pot. Root-bound plants generally stop producing top growth, and they often start blooming profusely. If the roots are left...

Investigative journalist Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner: The Immigrant) believed that if people weren’t upset, he wasn’t doing his job. He spent his career exposing injustices and telling what he believed to be fundamental truths.
Webb’s subjects aren’t typically sympathetic. He reported on ways the government infringes on the rights of drug dealers, confiscating property and money even when charges are dismissed or dropped.
When a drug...

Wooden boats require constant maintenance, and for the Mary Lois, it’s a family affair

Even a landlubber could tell this boat was different. Sitting on the hard at Herrington Harbour North this spring, it turned heads. It was old, it was wood — and something more. The lineage that defined that something more would stump even a sailing expert.
For more than 60 years, this custom-designed and home-built wooden boat, the Mary Lois by name, has sailed the Bay, owned by the same family who designed and built it. The Egelis are a dynasty of world-famous...

The newest thing about this year’s United States Sailboat Show is innovative, but not exactly new.
For the first time in its 45-year history, the annual Annapolis sailing extravaganza will debut Brokerage Cove, a section of previously owned yachts for sale. Offering a used-boat option was such a success in its debut at last year’s U.S. Powerboat Show that organizers expanded it to the sailboat show as well.
“Brokerage Cove is the biggest...